Guild Wars 2

Corruptions are supposed to be very powerful skills that harm the user in exchange for being strong. However, Corruptions are actually normal skills with somewhat unnecessary cons. I’d like to see each Corruption skill have a much larger impact and a greater drawback, as well as Master of Corruption receiving changes to accommodate those buffs. Suggestions are just suggestions, but tell me what you think!

Blood is Power: This skill gives a decent amount of AoE might and a tiny amount of Bleeds to a single target. If we wanted to make this really work as a Corruption skill, it would need to be more dramatic.
Ex. Apply 10 stacks of Bleed to the target foe, and for each stack of bleed on the foe, 1 stack of AoE Might for 8s. Apply 5 Bleed for 10s to yourself. (5 Torment for 10s with MoC)
Now this skill really hurts. It is essentially a Bleed burst and a group party buff all in one with the potential to give the whole party 25 might for a short time. Of course, to atone for the massive buff to this skill’s functionality, the self-harm is now actually dangerous. I think the 30s cd (20s traited) is reasonable, but this skill will need a more noticeable cast animation to prevent it from being impossible to get around (it really would suck to miss this).

Consume Conditions: This is easily the best Corruption skill, but it could also be tuned up to regain some of the luster it lost when it was demoted to a Corruption skill. The biggest points of concern are the self-blind, the 1 1/4s cast time, and the 30s cooldown (up from 25s).
Ex. Untraited: 1s cast time, 30s cooldown. Applies 5 stacks of self-vulnerability for 8s. Heals 10% Life Force and 1% additional for each Condition (max potential 23%)
Traited: 20s cooldown. Applies 10 stacks of self-vulnerability for 8s
Taking a little bit off of the cast time should help prevent Necromancers from taking 1 more tick of condition damage before their heal is finished, which will often save us from certain death. The life force on heal certainly doesn’t hurt, and the base 10% would probably revolutionize sPvP by itself. What does hurt is more Vulnerability. In fact, the Vulnerability on this heal could diminish its effectiveness if it is not removed quickly, which makes it a fairly great drawback.

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Making this eat projectiles was great, but this skill really ought to be melting people standing inside of it to justify using it over wells.
Ex. 8 Stacks of poison for 4s every other second and 5s of Weakness every other second. Applies 8 stacks of poison to self for 6s. Traited reduces cooldown to 20 and applies 6s of Cripple.
Now this skill is dangerous enough to warrant use outside of Ranger fights. To be fair, it also would hurt quite a bit more, and the cripple on this skill when traited is actually noticeable now.

Corrupt Boon: This skill feels like the inverse of plague signet, but it is significantly weaker in its intended function, which is not very Corruption-like.
Ex. This skill now breaks stun and is instant cast. Cooldown reduced to 30s (20s traited). It can also hit foes behind the caster now. Applies 5 stacks of Poison for 10 seconds to self (additional 3 stacks of bleed for 10s if traited)
Now this skill is actually a suitable substitute for plague signet. In different scenarios, these skills turn the tables on the foe, and they break stun in a pinch. To compensate for the extreme buff to this already decent skill, it is now suitably painful to use.
Epidemic: This skill is actually hard to buff, because its effect is so situational; however, it could stand to be better in the situations it is meant for.
Ex. Reduced cast time to 1/2s. Now affects a maximum of 10 targets. Applies 5 Vulnerability for 6s (and 3 stacks of Poison for 6s when traited).
One of the biggest shortcomings of Epidemic is that it often finishes casting after the foe has expired. This is no longer the case. Also, an upgrade to 10 targets helps condition necros make an impact on zerg fights while also making it the prime garbage disposal for PvE.

Plague: When this skill was changed to a Corruption skill, it was given a penalty that would pretty much kill the Necromancer if he stayed in it for the full duration. This was an epic failure because the current purpose of Plague is to turtle, and it provides little else beyond bulk.
Ex. Withering Plague: Add Bleed, Weakness, and Vulnerability to your plague. (5 stacks 3s/3s/5 stacks for 3s)
Plague of Darkness: Add Blind, Chill, and Poison to your plague. (2s/2s/4 stacks 3s)
Plague of Pestilence: Add Cripple and Poison to your Plague. Transfers 1 condition (3s/5 stacks 3s).
Plague of Corruption: Corrupts 3 Boons and grants protection (1s+1s for each boon corrupted) 1s cd
Plague of Hysteria: Adds Fear and Torment to your Plague (1s/5 Stacks 5s) 6s cd
Plague applies 1 stack of bleeding (10s) every second (traited applies 1 stack of poison (10s) every second) to self.
Plague is no longer a meek turtle, but a killer death mode. There is once again a penalty that can cause death on plague, but plague promotes offense, rewarding the aggressive necromancer with a chance to cleanse the bleed and poison. Plague gains 2 new skills: A boon hate skill that prevents the necro from being steamrolled and a fear that can be used 3 times in the duration of Plague with 2s of room for mix ups.

Master of Corruption: This trait could stand to give a little more positivity for all the harm it brings; however, the other two curses master traits are pretty bad, so it doesn’t need a lot.
Gain 1% Life Force for each condition you apply to yourself. Removed Blind and Weakness from pool of conditions.
Basically, each Corruption skill gives 2% Life Force, and none of the Corruption skills kill dps anymore. This helps feed the life force problems of builds that choose to run all Corruptions. It also makes Corruptions more useful on builds that rely on power damage.

I spent 3 hours writing this up. I’d appreciate any feedback.

I’m going to be completely honest with you. I hate the fact that corruptions apply self conditions, and so no matter what I will be coming from a biased place when I give my opinion here. Nevertheless, I’ll try to be as helpful as possible, since you’re so earnest.

I have to hand it to you for Blood Is Power—You’ve actually made the skill seem attractive, as opposed to everyone else who takes a swipe at it. I fear that it’d be way too strong though, no matter if the might was applied from bleeds already on the target before the skill lands its own or after. Even though even corruption skill as it is is essentially two skill slots (one for the corruption itself, and another to cleanse/transfer the condition), and two skills that could give 25 stacks of might instantly would be out of control strong, especially since having a ton of bleeds on the target is never hard, no matter the game mode. Maybe it wouldn’t be too strong a skill in a 1v1 context, but any time you’ve got one or two more people on your side contributing this one would get too good too fast.

I love the idea of Consume conditions granting life force per condition consumed, rather than straight health, for if nothing else, I’m dying for more skills on the necro to interact with life force in literally any way. Actually, I feel like this is your best idea, because it definitely seems like it’d help the skill without being too over the top. Hard to judge without actually using it though, of course.

You didn’t change much about CPC, and I can’t blame you. It’s one of our better corruption by far, except for that kitten able weakness, which I’ve noticed you removed. I think the changes you are making are a bit overwrought though. Switching out the weakness to something else would make this skill infinitely more attractive to non condi/transfer heavy necros as it is, which is who I think needs to be addressed most for the skill.

Breaking stun for Corrupt Boon is nice but unnecessary, and also hitting enemies behind the target (though I’m a bit confused what that actually means) is just too much. I don’t think this skill is that bad, surprisingly enough. It just needs to have its priorities changed. If this is going to be a utility slot skill with a decent cooldown I feel like it should definitely prioritize some of the stronger boons, as opposed to the ones it does now. To reiterate though, I don’t think a break stun is necessary. If you’re very set on it, perhaps make it break stun, but only on a certain condition? Idk.

Epidemic cannot effect ten targets, period. I love the idea, I assure you, but imagine WvW zergs… The crying would wash away necros in a tidal wave of nerfs, and it’d be justified. Even a half a second cast time feels too strong to me. I don’t actually think Epidemic is in a bad place, it’s just extremely niche. If a buff had to happen though, I feel like 3/4 of a second would be a happy medium.

Your plague changes are interesting. Again, I feel a bit on the too strong side, but interesting. I do disagree with them on principle though, I’m afraid. Necro’s elites are already all about defense. Flesh friend can’t do anything but, and Lich could be multifunction but everyone knows 1 spam is killer. Therefore, I like Plague being a very bunker-y defense button. Perhaps you could apply your same thought processes from the other skills to make it that much more bunkerish? Like have it also destroy projectiles, or put even more dps destroying conditions on foes, like slow and chill and the like, with a huge negative drawback being that you can’t gain ally boons or something ridiculous.

I like your change to Master of Corruption where each self applied condition grants life force. Condi necros need LF generation bad, and this’d help it a lot. I still stand by self inflicted condis being a part of corruptions being bad design, but this’d help the sting for sure. The weakness and blind thing though, that can’t happen. If it effected all blinds and weakness, that’d be hilariously OP—People would take the trait even without taking any corruptions just to negate two very painful condis. And if it applied to just ones the necro self-inflicted, it begs the question of why the skills apply them in the first place, since the trait would be so good you’d HAVE to take it.

Gerrark.9870:

I like your change to Master of Corruption where each self applied condition grants life force. Condi necros need LF generation bad, and this’d help it a lot. I still stand by self inflicted condis being a part of corruptions being bad design, but this’d help the sting for sure. The weakness and blind thing though, that can’t happen. If it effected all blinds and weakness, that’d be hilariously OP—People would take the trait even without taking any corruptions just to negate two very painful condis. And if it applied to just ones the necro self-inflicted, it begs the question of why the skills apply them in the first place, since the trait would be so good you’d HAVE to take it.

Slight misunderstanding here. I meant no more blind and weakness applied to self from corruption skills in general. As in they’d never apply them in the first place.

When I specced reaper, tossed away my condition stuff and went power based – being able to get rid of corruptions was a real joy. I used to use plague form a lot and it still bothers me that it has a downside.

The only improvement corruptions need is that the downside is removed. Other classes get much better things with no downside and the perception that necros really like self inflicted conditions is just as wrong as ever.

The changes are way too powerful. The problem here is, that the thing everyone calls a “downside” actually isn’t. It CAN be a downside… if you have no condition transfer. If you have, it is a upside, because you can transfer the selfharming conditions on your enemy.

So, look at the suggestions.
Blood is power: way too strong. It not only gives 10 stacks might (which also increases condition damage), but 10 stacks bleed to the enemy and 5 stacks to yourself? So, with condition transfer you get 10 stacks might and the enemy has 15 stacks bleed. And you stand there without any downside.

CPC: same problem as BiP. 8 stacks poison for 4 seconds every second and 8 stacks poison on self. With condition transfer, it is 16 stacks poison instant on enemy. Can go up to 40 stacks if the enemy stands inside the cloud…. Even if the target has to be immobile, 40 stacks of poison FROM A SINGLE SKILL is too much.

This problem goes on for the other suggestions and so here is the problem: You see something as a pure downside, which just isn’t. If you want to make such strong buffs to the skills, the downsides have to be downsides which can’t be drawn to be upsides. Like: instead of conditions, the necromancer loses health for each corruption he uses (like in gw1). Like, if you use BiP, you will lose 10% of your base health as direct damage. There is no chance to transfer this on your enemy, so buffing BiP can be made.

Kodama.6453:

The changes are way too powerful. The problem here is, that the thing everyone calls a “downside” actually isn’t. It CAN be a downside… if you have no condition transfer. If you have, it is a upside, because you can transfer the selfharming conditions on your enemy.

So, look at the suggestions.
Blood is power: way too strong. It not only gives 10 stacks might (which also increases condition damage), but 10 stacks bleed to the enemy and 5 stacks to yourself? So, with condition transfer you get 10 stacks might and the enemy has 15 stacks bleed. And you stand there without any downside.

CPC: same problem as BiP. 8 stacks poison for 4 seconds every second and 8 stacks poison on self. With condition transfer, it is 16 stacks poison instant on enemy. Can go up to 40 stacks if the enemy stands inside the cloud…. Even if the target has to be immobile, 40 stacks of poison FROM A SINGLE SKILL is too much.

This problem goes on for the other suggestions and so here is the problem: You see something as a pure downside, which just isn’t. If you want to make such strong buffs to the skills, the downsides have to be downsides which can’t be drawn to be upsides. Like: instead of conditions, the necromancer loses health for each corruption he uses (like in gw1). Like, if you use BiP, you will lose 10% of your base health as direct damage. There is no chance to transfer this on your enemy, so buffing BiP can be made.

Well the point or trick is to design it in such a way that it’s hard to make the downside an upside, and only rarely, and even then it comes with a cost.

You only have so many transfers.

Design the corruptions to be very short cooldown (like almost spammable) for a mild/moderate effect, with a low but long duration condition.

What this means is, to collect value on the corruption skill, you have to spam it multiple times, which take some time to stack up enough conditions to be worth transfering. In the mean time those conditions will take their toll in the long run.

Here’s a rough example :

5 second cooldown skill, applies x2 self torment (20s).

Use it once, mild self punishment, or blow transfer for just 2 stacks of torment.

Use it three times and you’re holding onto x4 stacks for a while just to transfer x6 stacks. With a condi build that’s like 400 dps while standing still for 10 seconds, just to condi bomb with a transfer.

Versus : 20 second cooldown, self inflict x10 torment. You just transfer every time for a major upside with no downside.

So that’s the idea. The only problem is having so many passive condi transfers/cleanses that trivial these decisions like minion transfers or sigil of generosity etc.

The actual gameplay of self conditions could work fine if designed well.

I also think that all of these changes at the same time, might be on the OP side of the equation, however they are good food for thought. Take the removal of blind and weakness, for example. These two seem to indicate the designers made these changes with the idea of really crippling the necromancer for not getting rid of their conditions, essentially forcing you to transfer them for a higher effect and as other people have commented if you design corruptions to go with transfers there really is no easy task of balancing them around increasing their power, while increasing their penalty unless you can’t transfer that penalty.

Plague, on the other hand… YES PLEASE? I mean… plague of Hysteria alone should be implemented (at least). It’d be ridicoulously funny to see everybody running for their lives amidst the plague cloud. It’s an amazing idea just for the laughs. The other ideas could also work really well. Again it might be on the OP side, but that plague of hysteria thing just killed me with laughter. It needs polish, but seems like an awesome idea.

Great post!

Necromancer has 7 6 ways of transferring conditions and several more ways to remove them. Building for transfers is absolutely, IMO, necessary so it is highly Necromancers are expected to transfer self-inflicted conditions to opponents.

Edit: Was thinking of Blood Bond as a transfer but it is lesser SoV.

Anchoku.8142:

Necromancer has 7 (I think) ways of transferring conditions and several more ways to remove them. Building for transfers is absolutely, IMO, necessary so it is highly Necromancers are expected to transfer self-inflicted conditions to opponents.

Here is the thing, those transfers don’t come for free, at no cost to your build. They take up utility, weapon, heal, trait, rune, or some other slot that comes at an economic cost to your build; taking that selection means you can’t take something else in its place. Meaning, in a standard build I take enough transfers and removal that I feel comfortable dealing with enemy conditions and no more, because excess transfers are wasted power in a build. So, to take a skill that requires me to take additional transfers, means that skill and its subsequent transfer needs to be strong enough to validate me dedicating two components of my build to one skill. But this isn’t the case for Corruptions or Master of Corruption right now, they simply aren’t strong enough to be worth running, and OP’s listed changes aren’t going to fix this.

Anchoku.8142:

Necromancer has 7 (I think) ways of transferring conditions and several more ways to remove them. Building for transfers is absolutely, IMO, necessary so it is highly Necromancers are expected to transfer self-inflicted conditions to opponents.

7? No. I can list them:
Deathly Swarm (Dagger Offhand)
Putrid Mark (Staff 4)
Plague Signet (Utility)
Plague Sending (Adept in Curses)
Sigil of Generosity (lol)

Beyond those, our condi cleanses are not really that great in supply (but we still have a decent amount)
Consume Conditions
Shrouded Removal (Adept in Death Magic)
Well of Power
Lich Form skill
Necromantic Corruption (Master in Death Magic, tied to minions)
Spiteful Renewal (Spite Adept)

We will always have some form of condition removal on our bar, but all of them require sacrifices (dagger, or warhorn?). So while we do have a nice amount of ways to handle conditions, we can’t leisurely cleanse our own conditions and our opponents’ conditions at the same time.

In response to comments about my suggestion towards Blood is Power, I do realize that it is very strong, and it would probably need a slightly higher cost.
For example:
Compound the self-bleeds to 10 stacks for 5 seconds. This would diminish the payoff for transferring it and seriously increase the danger of using this skill.
Increase the cast time to 1 1/4 seconds and add an animation like the one on Consume Conditions. On one hand, this could cause people to waste their interrupts on the wrong skill. On the other, this makes this skill far more avoidable.

Of course, the skill could have a slightly lower payoff too.
For example:
8 stacks of bleed sent out instead of 10. This reduces the might you gain by 2 stacks. Overall, it reduces the potential damage.
Decrease Might Duration to 5s. Less time to deal damage, which means a lot on a slow Necromancer.

Ideally, some combination of these changes would probably bring the skill in line.

I mis-counted but my point was the developers expect Necromancer to “buy” condition transfers on corruption builds. That does not mean the cost/performance is adequate. I almost never trait for a Corruption build. It does mean that, at least for PvP, a corruption transfer build is close to balanced on their records.

It is not at all balanced in PvE, being the single weakest build by a very wide margin, if conditions are not ideal for Epidemic. (Even nerfed Epidemic is either super strong or ultra useless.) R.I.P., CPC.

Even in PvP, conditions, especially Necromancer’s soft CC, feel much less effective than they used to but I am not very knowledgeable about that.

Corruption utilities are definitely weak but transfers are supposed to be required for their use. I loath using any but the heal and elite, always build for transfer and removal if I do run them, and still hate the trait but I play more PvE and WvW.

Putrid Mark
Deathly Swarm
Plague Signet
Plague Sending
Suffer
Sigil of Generosity